


Becoming Real

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Parentlock, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 23:48:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John goes off to war, leaving Sherlock with their son, Hamish, and when something goes terribly wrong he has to pick up the pieces with the help of Greg Lestrade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own these lovely characters I’m writing about and Moffat won’t let me own BBC’s Sherlock no matter how much I beg and plead and promise to throw the characters off of buildings.
> 
> The title isn’t mind as well. I would like to thank misssnowwhitepink on Tumblr for helping me come up with it. The origin is a quote she had found for me to use. Quote is from The Velveteen Rabbit. So, really, I’d like to thank her for helping me so much with giving me this perfect title.

So many times they had talked about it, always planning for the what-if's as John had called them. Such as who call, where he'd get buried, and what to do after everything got finished, such as moving on for the sake of Sherlock's sanity as well as Hamish's. Never in his life had the detective actually thought it would happen, that his husband, the man he'd said he'd spend the rest of his life with, would be gone. The news had been delivered to him at 8:37 in the morning. Two men had been let up by Mrs. Hudson -- the woman had thought it had been a case for him -- and right away he had known it had something far less delightful than that from the stiff posture and somber look on their faces.

"I'm so sorry," the first had said, a genuine look of sadness crossing his face for a brief second.

"There's nothing we can bring back to bury," the other had explained.

"You should be honored. He saved many people by doing at he did," the first had added on.

With another apology they had seen themselves out for Sherlock felt too weak to stand up do it himself. The nicely dressed soldiers seemed used to the reaction, somewhat grateful as well seeing that he hadn't broken down into a fit of tears. Silence filled the flat and the hole quickly forming in his chest. Plans would have to be put in place with a calm mind, not one crowded by grief. Calm was filling him, but the kind that came before a storm.

Hamish would have to be told -- Hamish Watson-Holmes, their four-year old son they had adopted around their third anniversary as a freshly born and oh-so perfect. Their son that was still young enough to call John, Daddy and Sherlock, Papa, yet smart enough to be placed in primary school not nursery school like most children would be at his age, happily learning shapes, colors, and writing, something their little boy had begun to master at the age of two.

Hamish was going to be devastated.

With a shaky hand Sherlock pulled out his phone, only knowing one number that he could text for   
anything. Lestrade. The DI had been good friends with John, someone who came over to their house for dinner and had been John's best man their wedding. Sherlock trusted the man because John had truly made it so.

I need you to pick Hamish up from school. -SH

Why? What's going on? GL

It was rare for Sherlock to pull Hamish out of school; he saw school as important since it was something that was going to get his son a good job at some time in the future. John had always told him he was stupid to think ahead that far in life when Hamish was four -- Bloody four! he would have exclaimed -- and did have his whole life ahead of him. That had been one thing they had fought about more than they wanted to admit to each other. He allowed a sigh, feeling his phone vibrate again as he sat in his chair. There was no will power in him to pick it up, his hand heavier than anything he had ever lifted in his life. The motivation to even do a simple task was weighing him down more than he could have ever imagined. But, as always, he found a way to do the impossible -- no, the improbable.

Sherlock, are you in trouble? GL  
I'm going to pick Hamish up but explain to me, alright? Simple yes or no will work fine. GL

Yes. I'll tell you. -SH

Lestrade deserved that after all. They had worked together since had been a pretentious teen, waltzing in on crime scenes unannounced and sometimes high as a kite when going on. Only way he had been able to do what he had planned to do since the age of thirteen was kick his habit. And he had... mainly. Some relapses but nothing as bad as it had been before. Since he and John had married he hadn't taken it. Seven years sober. According to Lestrade he was still pretentious but at least got announced now when he came on, which people still didn't enjoy very much.

Not that it mattered now.

He tossed his phone in the direction of the couch so not to worry about it, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees and hands over his face, hiding himself from the world around him. It was all too loud with the silence, eating and picking at him, forcing him to acknowledge more than he already had that the man he loved had died in some foreign country defending it for a shit war that had no real reason besides gas. He was going to punch Mycroft for that one upon their next meeting. John had died, not in his arms, but throwing his body over a damn bomb and having everything of him obliterated, down to the dog tags. All they had to go off of was the people who had seen his last heroic act.

"God damn your hero complex," he said, more like shouted, to himself with a sharp movement of his hand turning into a fist to connect with the arm of his chair in a hammer strike.

One hand still remained over his face to hide it from prying eyes as tears prickled in them to their own accord. By the time Hamish and Lestrade arrived they'd be bloodshot either from his crying or from holding it in for too long. He knew Lestrade would go to the worst -- another relapse -- to ignore the idea that John Watson had died. The position he was in stayed that way until he heard the door open from below and a cheery greeting from Mrs. Hudson while Hamish bounded up the stairs, probably extremely excited that he was getting out of school for the rest of the day, not to mention until the funeral was planned out and over.

Sherlock saw Hamish and knew that his easy assumptions of his son's character had been correct. A bright and happy smile was plastered on his face, lighting up his pale features that was only accented by the black hair that sat atop his head in a mop of hair. Clothes were perfectly picked out and definitely not appropriate for the weather with how thin they were, something John would have scolded him for. The small hands were clutched around the straps of his bag in an excited style until his son's deep blue eyes met his face and their eyes connected. An instant understanding was forged and the smile, his son's beautiful smile, disappeared in a flash.

"Papa, what's going on?"

Their eyes stayed locked as he just looked at his little boy. Now w was he going to be able to lie to him, not even for a moment. Hamish pulled his backpack off, letting it drop to the ground without a car for what was inside it like he usually would have done. The boy went to his father and climbed up on top of his lap, already nestling into him out of the new anticipated bad news.

Downstairs he heard Lestrade milling around, pacing across the space of the floor in front of the stairs. Stressed, worrying about the news that the detective was going be delivering to the pair. An absent hand went down Hamish's back to hold onto him a bit better and pull him close his chest. Sherlock finally heard those tell-tale signs of the stairs creaking under weight as the DI ascended.

Lestrade entered a few moments later, the usual clothes on his body that marked he had been at work, probably dropping everything in his haste to get there. "Signing things," Sherlock questioned in a bored tone, getting a frown from the man. There was no usual excitement to at least be deducing something. It was already a heads up that something was wr and he was just putting off telling the news. "Ink on your fingers. From that temperamental pen you use," he added for an explanation.

"Ah." A pause. "Sherlock, you said you would explain what's going on. Now do it."

No nonsense Lestrade. Hamish had perked up a bit to look at Sherlock. Hope was in his eyes that something good was going to come of this bit of news.

"Daddy's not going to be coming home," he said in as level of a voice that he could manage."He got hurt and passed away."

Hamish understood what Sherlock was saying. His eyes were up and on him, the hope slowly fading and drowning away to go somewhere else deep inside him. Merely seconds later the boy began crying. In an attempt to muffle the noise he was drawn closer, face moved to press into the familiar and comforting shoulder of his father. Little arms wrapped around his neck as the wetness grew on his shoulder from those tears.

Upon looking up from tending to his crying boy he noticed that Lestrade was standing there with tense posture that only could be marked down as shock. "I'm going to make tea," the DI said, moving back to the kitchen to get that going. That had always been John's solution to everything, a nice cuppa and it would all be fine. That rarely worked on any occasion it was put into action. Still a comfort.

The noise of someone bustling in the kitchen, getting cups down from their shelves, sugar being brought out milk to make it creamy rather than watery. Somehow the noise soothed Hamish and in the midst of his crying he went to sleep. Sherlock's cheek rested against the top of his boy's head. The warmth that came off him was amazing, reminding him of when Hamish had just been a baby and how that same warmth had put him to sleep when holding his son. None of John's scolding had put an end to that.

Lestrade came back with the tea, two cups and Sherlock's with two sugars and a bit of milk, to the sitting room. The one that was his was set down to the side of him on the little table while the DI hesitated before sitting on the couch. John's chair would have been closer but if the man had dared to sit in it Sherlock would have snapped at last. It was barely nine in the morning and everything had been ruined.

"How did it happen," Lestrade asked cautiously, eyes focused on Sherlock's in the way he focused on a suspect.

The detective's long pale fingers threaded through Hamish's hair out of reflex, needing something to hold onto and play with so he wouldn't go insane. Little ticks from his childhood were coming back with this latest disruption in his life God, he hoped the rocking wouldn't come back; he could deal with fiddling hands as a stim, but not rocking.

"Threw himself over a bomb to protect the people on his team and the civilians around him. They say he didn't feel a thing from the force of the explosion, that if there was any pain he would have only felt it for a moment."

Silence.

It only lasted for minutes until Lestrade broke it again to try to fill it with something other than the pain they were sharing. "I'm so sorry. God, is there anything I can do? ANything I can help with? This is just... awful."

Lestrade ran his fingers through the hair that was completely grey. Another sign of stress in the man's life. Didn't they all feel that?

"No, just, all I need you to do is tell people at the Yard. That and take me from your calling list for difficult cases. You know my methods and, if it comes down to it, you can do it yourself."

It was always serious when Sherlock asked to be taken off of cases. He had done it only a few times in all those years of working with the DI; first when had gone through another withdrawal from drugs right before he and John had met and the man had moved in, the honeymoon of his and John's wedding -- John had requested it as a wedding present instead of going out and buying something that would be rarely used --, and finally when they had adopt Hamish for the first two weeks to get used to having a baby around the flat.

He finally reached over, pulling his hand from his son's hair, to grab the tea waiting for him. In the silence he took a sip, eyes slowly closing. The tea tasted exactly how John had made it. Lestrade had learned well how to make it to the standard of excellence.

When it was off of his mouth he said, "Do you think you could leave? I'd like to have some time alone before Hamish wakes back up. If I need anything, I'll text you."

Lestrade was nodding his head, standing and seeming to just want to please. "I'll check on you tomorrow then. Don't do anything stupid." That standard goodbye was given and off the man went, leaving his tea still steaming where he had set it on the coffee table. From below he heard the door close and as soon as the loneliness had set in his head fell down to rest on his son's.


	2. Chapter Two

The next day Sherlock had called in for Hamish to get him out of school before he had woken up, getting the familiar voice of the secretary, Mrs. Lovett, that reacted with sympathy for the news he had to tell her. Hamish could take a week off beginning that day, according to the school's policy for deaths in the family. Then on Wednesday of the next week he would be back in school and his normal routine. He thanked Mrs. Lovett for that -- John had taught him when to say those things since getting on the good side of a secretary might help later in Hamish's life, especially if the boy turned out to be more like Sherlock than anyone had anticipated -- and hung up.

The little boy was still fast asleep upstairs in his bedroom. Sherlock had managed to get him up for a few hours the day before, then Hamish had started nodding off again. In that time span he had gotten Hamish to eat something, an apple that he had found in the back of the fridge and deemed good enough to eat, drink something, tea to warm him up since he was shaking from cold and shock, and then read him a story as he got tucked in, his favorite that was about a wizard named Harry. Hamish had curled up and drifted off around the time that the letters had started flooding house at Number Four Privet Drive to try to tell the ten-year old that he was a wizard. Hamish already had read all the books and John had gotten the movies so the two could watch them together on a Daddy and Son date, not a Papa and Son one since Sherlock would end up shouting at the telly.

It was noon and Sherlock was just waking up himself, still in the sweats that he had been in since the day before. He was cooking up breakfast for he and Hamish, simple eggs that were cooking up fast, filling the flat with the smell and the sizzling sound of them. The eggs got dished out on two different plates, one for him and one for Hamish, when he heard a stirring from upstairs. In a few moments the sleepy face of the toddler came down, rubbing his eyes tiredly to get the sleep out of them.

"how are you doing," Sherlock questioned as he scooped the little boy up into his arms to press him nice and close to let him know without words that he was there. Without a doubt, Sherlock guessed that his son had to be thinking that his Papa might go as well somewhere that he couldn't follow, like Daddy had. It was a common fear for children that knew loss.

"Alright." The word was mumbled into his chest so that it was muffled and he could barely hear it. Hamish was breathing deeply as if he was breathing in Sherlock's familiar smell and fighting back tears at the same time, just so he would seem like a big boy.

"I made some eggs for us. You need to eat at least half, alright? Then we can do what you want and talk about what all this means now that Daddy's gone."

A sniffle sounded that Sherlock could only take as an okay. The boy stayed in his arms as he got taken to the table, sat down in his usual spot, the one meant for John remaining empty for him as if he would return home at any minute.

In silence the two picked at their food, their tangled masses of hair bent as they ate slowly. Hamish had picked up on Sherlock's eating habit and not John's shoveled in bites that kept going until he got kicked under the table for setting a bad example. It was surprising for some that the rude detective had better table manners than the polite doctor.

Hamish finished first with a bit over half the food gone and settling in his stomach. Sherlock looked up next with his own food slightly completed. He wasn't hungry but knew he had to make a good example for his son so Hamish wouldn't rebel against the half the food eaten rule John had set up once they figured Hamish was old enough to feed himself, which had been around age one and a half. Hamish had matured far faster than they had thought he would. The boy picked up on so much that most his age didn't, more even than people in his class did. John had joked around and called Hamish a mini-Sherlock until he realized Sherlock didn't like it.

"Come on and help me do the dishes. Scrape the food into the trash then bring the dishes to me."

He turned the water on once the plates were in his hand to get the rest of the food off. Hamish watched as Sherlock cleaned, putting the semi-clean dishes in the dishwasher for later. "Now let's get you into the shower," the detective said as he again picked the boy up to take him upstairs to his bathroom.

Sherlock mainly sat outside of the shower on the toilet, waiting for the boy to stick his head out so he could was Hamish's hair. Though Hamish felt he was older than he really was, he wasn't and couldn't do certain things like the other kids in his class could. Once the boy finished and the water was off, Sherlock helped dry him off and dress him.

"Where is it that you want to go," he questioned, walking down the stairs with Hamish trailing behind him while they went to Sherlock's room to go and allow him to get ready. To save time he simply combed the knots out of his hair then dressed in his typical clothes that looked like a larger version of Hamish's. "We could read, watch your favorite show, or--"

"I want to go to a park." Hamish crossed his arms over his chest, giving him a look that said there was no budging him in another direction. "Daddy's park. I want to go to Daddy's park."

All Sherlock could do was give a nod. He was going to have to take Hamish there. "There's no equipment to play on. We could just sit on a bench and talk about things."

Hamish agreed and off they went. Sherlock thought while taking him was about how this was John's job. John had talked about the tough things, the things that were difficult and would make an impact on their lives. His husband had been so much better at those things than he was. John always had known when to do the right comforting gesture or when to say something that dispelled all fear, while Sherlock was a bumbling idiot that made things worse. All he knew was that by the end of this time in the park they were both going to feel worse over things.

The park was quiet considering the time of day. Usually the place was bustling with people looking for some peace and quiet while on their short lunch break. Today it wasn't so. Hamish's tiny had remained in his as they walked through the park towards where John had liked to go. It seemed like the best place for them to go with the subject they'd be pondering.

There was a bench seeming to be waiting for them. Nothing was on it so he went right to it with Hamish having to walk quickly to keep up with him. Sherlock sat, pulling Hamish onto his lap. His eyes darted around the park, gathering up as much as he possibly could of the area surrounding him; there was a couple kissing, a man walking his dog, a couple of moms taking advantage of the nice weather and having a jog while the kids were at school. Those were the little things at he pointed out to his son as they sat together. One arm was around the boy's waist so they were pressed together, back against chest.

"What happened to Daddy?"

Hamish's voice was small, tiny, a just a whisper loud enough so no one passing by would be able to listen in. Sherlock focused in on the wide, deep blue eyes that were asking for answers to his questions that were a bit over his head.

"Daddy saw something that was going to hurt innocent people," Sherlock whispered, "And he didn't want that to happen, so he decided to save him by allowing the thing to take his life instead of theirs."

He couldn't deny how his voice was thinking, how filled with emotion he was. John's death had shaken him more than he would ever have thought. Seven years together married, plus two years split between friendship and dating. Sherlock looked away from his son for a few seconds to calm himself down again so he could stay level through the questioning.

"What was going to hurt people?"

"A thing called a bomb. When it explodes it launches things towards people and hurts them, sometimes kills them," he answered.

"Like it did with Daddy?"

"Yes."

Silence settled between them ag as they started people watching with no real point or purpose to it. Some looked back, feeling self-conscious about someone watching them. Hamish was more of pondering than thinking about everything about the person they saw for only a few seconds. That was more of what Sherlock did. Tearing people apart in his mind was the most therapeutic thing for him to do, as he had learned in his teens.

"Am I going to get another Daddy?"

That innocent and childlike look on Hamish's face threw him off guard. Sherlock stared at the boy blankly for few long minutes. This was when John would have chimed in with a, "Why would you think that?" But Sherlock wasn't John, not in a longshot.

"No," Sherlock said, "I won't get you another Daddy. One day if I find that right person, I may remarry, but you will /never/ have another Daddy unless /you/ want them to be it. I would never make you accept someone as that role in your life unless you want them to."

Hamish had to take a few minutes to wrap his mind around the theory of not having a Daddy. He'd always had one after all but not anymore, not since Papa had told him that Daddy was gone and dead, never coming home. The thought was foreign to him. "But what if I want a Daddy?" The were hysterics creeping into his voice, that he was about to start bawling soon over this. Right away Sherlock's hand move over Hamish's back try to soothe him.

"For now I'm going to be your Papa and your Daddy. I hope that's going to be okay with you. I'm going to be doing the best I can at it, but I know I'll never be like Daddy. Only he can have that job." The hand kept moving up and down, slowly and gently, lightly scratching his back with the movements. "If that's not good enough, there's nothing more I can do about it. You're going to have just me for a long time."

Sherlock already doubted there would be someone else for him in the world. John had been it for him in every sense of the word, and he was fine with thinking that, knowing that from now on he'd be by himself for the most part, especially as Hamish grew up.

They're conversation seemed over so he stood up with the boy in his arms still, simply taking him back to the flat. While walking he acknowledged that he'd need to contact all the people that he had been told specifically to tell if something happened to John, from Mrs. Watson to Harriet, the woman who would probably relapse after all the progress she had done at being sober. Sherlock opened the front door and went up the stairs. Hamish got let down and he took off into the flat so he could find something to do. There was a noise of surprise from the toddler that made Sherlock hurry into the sitting room where Lestrade awkwardly stood, holding a mysterious looking casserole in his hand.

"Just thought I'd stop by and visit. See how you're doing, yeah? And make sure that you're not going hungry."

Sherlock barely nodded his head, not feeling up to saying words that were unneeded.

"Maybe I could watch Hamish for a bit while you do what you need to do?"

That was a thought. "Yeah," the detective murmured, "That'd be good"

The DI immediately snapped to his task and Sherlock went back to his bedroom to make those calls, door securely closed and a hand resting on his forehead.


End file.
